


We vow

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild
Genre: Birthday, Community: 52fandoms, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petrova's birthday, the first one after the Fossil sisters' paths have diverged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We vow

'Come on,' Petrova murmured. ' _Come on_...' The tiny bolt wobbled in its hole; she held the screwdriver dead straight and twisted it delicately. The bolt caught the thread, and slid in deftly. She breathed out.

The remaining components of the magneto lay in an orderly row on a piece of newspaper. Petrova frowned at the shell, then looked up as Gum stumped in.

'Tea?' He put the mug down on the bench, next the sheet of newspaper.

'Thank you.' She laid the screwdriver down, counted the bolts once again, for it was so easy to lose them, and wiped her oily fingers on a rag, before drinking.

Gum said, 'I take it you saw the parcels on the hall table?'

She grinned. 'I did. I was saving them up for this evening. I'll come through when I've done this.'

It took her twenty minutes to finish reassembling the magneto; then she changed out of her overalls and joined Gum in the kitchen.

He had made a little tower of parcels in front of her seat, and put an empty egg cup like a cupola on the top. 'Three and a half minutes,' he said.

'Lovely.' Petrova fetched the butter and began to spread the toast. 'Good day?'

'Oh, not bad, not bad at all. And you? Good birthday?'

'Very. We worked out what was causing the vapour locking in the new batch of engines - though of course that took so long that I had to take that magneto home.' Petrova sat down and began working her way through the pile of presents. The first was a little case of tiny screwdrivers. 'Oh, Gum, they're lovely, just what I needed!' Next, from Nana, a photograph of herself and Posy. _Otherwise you wouldn't know what P looked like with her new hair_ , Nana had written, _and she insisted on my being in it too._

Posy herself had sent a fantastically impractical necklace, a letter full of scrappy news (mostly about ballet – Petrova read parts of it to Gum over their boiled eggs) and a card upon which she had printed _WE VOW_ in determined black letters. From Garnie, a box of scandalously exotic chocolates, and from Pauline, a catalogue of American aeroplanes – and two letters, one long one to be put aside to read later, along with the aeroplanes, and one that said, simply, _I vow to help in any way I can to put Petrova into history books, because her name is Fossil, and it's our very own, and nobody can say it's because of our grandfathers_ –

_HAPPY BIRTHDAY!_


End file.
